Restructuring of meat simply refers to combining pieces of meat into a desired shape, e.g. steaks and roasts (see "Update on Meat Restructuring" in Memorandum of Screening and Surveillance, USDA, FSIS, Meat and Poultry Technology Transfer and Assessment, Vol. 5, No. 1, published Jan. 1986, incorporated herein by reference). Obviously such combining is most desirably performed in a manner to provide restructured meat products which have pleasing flavor, appearance, texture, and masticatory properties, at the lowest possible cost. The restructuring process itself, that utilizes starting material has been well publicized, see e.g. "Restructured Meat Products: A Review", by D. R. Smith in Food Technology in Australia, Vol. 36(4) Apr. 1984, pages 178-182, and "Restructured Red Meat Products: In Review" by S. C. Seideman et al, in Journal of Food Quality 6(1983) 81-101, both incorporated herein by reference. In the process of restructuring, large pieces of flaked lean meat are mixed with finely ground objectionable tissue (gristle and fat) and certain binders. This mixture is subsequently subjected to high pressure while being formed into desired shapes. A final cleaving to desired thickness yields the restructured end product. Presently, production of starting material for restructured meat is typically carried out manually. However, such manual operations suffer from the drawbacks of: (1) being labor intensive and therefore expensive; (2) incurring quality control problems (from factors such as, worker fatigue, subjective evaluation, operator error) which adversely affect consumer acceptance of the restructured meat products, and; (3) producing starting material at much lower throughput rates then can be achieved with automated systems.
The present invention avoids the drawbacks of the prior art by: requiring substantially less labor (and thereby lower cost of labor), improving reliability, producing higher quality control (i.e. providing objective, accurate and reliable quality), and permitting much higher throughput speeds then are possible using manual preparation; thus providing higher quality starting material at a substantially lower cost. These advantages of the present invention, as well as other advantages which will be apparent from a reading of the ensuing description, are accomplished by:
A method of optically detecting undesirable material in meat and excising the undesirable material, which method includes,
optically detecting with mechanical optical detection means (i.e. as opposed to human vision) a location of undesirable material in meat,
communicating information regarding the location of the undesirable material in the meat from the mechanical optical detection means to control means, and
excising said undesirable material from the meat with a high pressure water jet controlled by the control means.
A second aspect of the present invention which relates to an apparatus for detection and excision of undesirable material from meat including:
mechanical optical detection means (i.e. mechanical, as opposed to human vision) for optical detection of the location of undesirable material in meat,
means for producing a high pressure water jet, and control means, operably connected to both the mechanical optical detection means and the means for producing a high pressure water jet, for receiving information regarding the location of the undesirable material in meat from the mechanical optical detection means and for controlling the means for producing a high pressure water jet to excise the undesirable material from the meat.
A third aspect of the present invention relates to a textural detector apparatus which includes:
a plurality of needles,
retaining means for retaining all the needles so that each of the needles is individually displaceable along its longitudinal center axis, and
means, operably associated with the needles, for detecting whether or not each said needle is displaced along its longitudinal center axis.
A fourth aspect of the instant invention pertains to an analogous process which comprises:
providing a plurality of needles,
providing retaining means for retaining all the needles so that each of the needles is individually displaceable along its longitudinal center axis, and
detecting whether or not each of the needles is displaced along its longitudinal center axis.
A fifth aspect of the present invention relates to a highly advantageous and unobvious multiple blade slicer which includes,
a cutting table dimensioned and configured to retain material to be sliced,
automatic clamping means, operatively associated with said cutting table, for securely clamping said material to be sliced with automatic adjustment to the shape of said material, while said material to be sliced is retained by said cutting table, and
slicing means including a plurality of cutting blades for slicing said material to be sliced while it is retained by said cutting table and clamped by said automatic clamping means.